Magic: The Gathering is a trading card game that features deep lore and richly-realized worlds, and one of the most colorful and exotic worlds is Kaladesh, an inventor's paradise. Depicted in the Kaladesh block, this world is home to streams of aether that flows through nature, shaping it into elegant curves and spirals. Everyone makes good use of aether, and a few are actually born of it.
Aether of this type is unique to the plane of Kaladesh. The Aetherborn folk are indeed created from aether naturally, and they roam the plane of Kaladesh, seeking joy and adventure in every waking moment. After all, they don't have long to live.
Meet the Aetherborn, Kaladesh's Unique Race
The Aetherborn people have a distinct appearance, with gray, smooth, hairless skin and glowing blue eyes. Their skin often has cracks all over it, and blue aether might faintly glow from those cracks. Aetherborns also lack visible noses, ears or mouths, but they do stand at human height, and otherwise have basic human anatomy (save for lack of genitalia).
Aetherborn have no sexes and no genders, so an Aetherborn is really just an "it." In some cases, though, an Aetherborn might identify as a certain gender, and may ask other people to treat it accordingly. They may sometimes adopt names, too, such as the infamous Aetherborn crime lord Gonti.
The Aetherborn are all aware they are temporary beings; they may fall apart within months of being created, so they usually have a free spirit and hedonistic lifestyle. In a way, they behave like tourists while living in cities like Ghirapur, seeking pleasure, enjoyment and astonishing experiences of all kinds. This contrasts sharply with the long-lived elves, who take their time to understand nature and replicate it carefully in their inventions. Aetherborns are always ready to party and meet new people, and soak up the world around them before they inevitably crumble apart. Aetherborn wisdom holds that when the time to die has come, the dying Aetherborn should be at peace with what's happening, and be grateful for all the wonderful things it has experienced until then.
Most Aetherborn live free, but some of them actually take on jobs. The crime lord Gonti is an unusual case. Gonti, likely fearing death, obtained and fitted a metal heart into its body, allowing it to live far longer than most of its kind usually do. Gonti has it all: A nightclub, a hangar filled with wondrous vehicles, bouncers and bodyguards (many of them Aetherborn), power and influence, wealth and more. It should be noted that most Aetherborn are affiliated with black mana, and Gonti's obsession with wealth, immortality and power are all traditional pursuits of black mana.
Aetherborn in Magic: The Gathering
The Aetherborn are a minor tribe in Magic: The Gathering; they cannot compete with the likes of the Merfolk people or the Goblin tribe, but still, the Aetherborn are fairly useful in Kaladesh block booster draft games. These creatures mainly appear in black mana, though Contraband Kingpin is blue-black, and the Aetherborn involve themselves in many of the block's themes and mechanics.
A number of them synergize with artifact cards and +1/+1 counters, which are major themes of the block, and Weaponcraft Enthusiast has Fabricate 2. It's a 0/1 for {2}B that can either get two +1/+1 counters to be a 2/3 creature, or make two 1/1 artifact Servo creature tokens. Contraband Kingpin will scry as its controller puts artifacts onto the battlefield (such as Servos from creatures with Fabricate), and Aetherborn Marauder can even move +1/+1 counters from other creatures onto itself. Since it has lifelink and flying, those +1/+1 counters will be put to good use for sure.
Gonti, Lord of Luxury is one of the few legendary Aetherborn creatures, and it may act as the leader for casual mono-black Commander decks. This creature can exile a card from among the top four cards of an opponent's library, then at leisure, cast that spell, regardless of colored mana requirements. Decks built around Gonti make use of mechanics such as Devotion (from the Theros block) to drain opponents with Gray Merchant of Asphodel, and this deck may sacrifice many creatures and artifacts to make it an "aristocrat" build.
Yahenni, Undying Partisan is another legendary Aetherborn that works well with aristocrat builds. It's a 2/2 with haste that gets a +1/+1 counter each time an opponent's creature dies, and it can sacrifice a friendly creature to gain indestructible for the turn.